It isn't Democracy. It isn't Liberation. It's Religion

We are fighting a war but it isn’t about creating a democracy in a country or liberating that country.  The liberation has been accomplished.  The dictator has been deposed, the regime has been dismantled and the road is clear for those who want to establish a free country.  The reason that isn’t happening isn’t because elections are needed (elections have been held ).  A free country depends on the right ideas and there is no dissemination of the right ideas from within or from without.  The ideas we are sending are bromides that freedom will come when all the “insurgents” are defeated, the country is rebuilt ( at America’s expense with our soldiers acting as carpenters and painters ) and the Irag citizens see what we have done for them.  We are not dealing with the fundamental issue.  The issue is ( in spite of the evasions and apologies ) religion.

Religion is a set of beliefs based on faith.  Faith is unquestioning belief that does not allow for reason.  Without reason there can be no analysis, no understanding, no acceptance and yes, no peace.  The creation of a secular government where all religions are recognized can only survive if the role of reason is supreme.  Using reason to reveal the conflicts of the past and prevent them in the future makes clear the need for knowledge derived from observation and understanding rather than revelation and dictates.  To get to this point requires the rejection of faith as a means of knowledge.  It also requires an understanding of what reason is , how it works and why it is the only way for men to come to sound conclusions about how they can and should interact with each other.  There can be no guidance in this regard if each party claims to be a spokesman for a supreme being that calls for the elimination of the “unbeliever”.  

This issue is being avoided now just as it has been avoided in all the religious wars that have ravaged the world for centuries.  The Crusades had many of the same battle-cries we hear today.  Just as an argument continues until the fundamental issue is resolved so too the war on terror will rage until we recognize we are not fighting effectively until we clearly say what we are fighting for and why.  To kill the enemy is not a sufficient explanation. We killed many Japanese and Germans during the second world war but we now trade and even enter treaties with them.  They were enemies when they accepted and promoted and defended ideals of world conquest that threatened our security.  We now have our security threatened by scattered groups of religious zealots that do not care about world domination as such but the elimination of all who do not subscribe to their interpretation of their belief system.  We live in a country that allows all belief systems to exist and our government is forbidden to establish a state religion. We know that this system works as it has survived and flourished when no other form has.  

But our system is based on a recognition that no one has the right to force their ideas on others.  It is fair, it is just and it is based on reason.  Our government was created to protect this idea and even though it has eroded this responsibility by claiming public good trumps individual  rights it is still fundamentally sound.  If it were explicitly reviewed, reiterated and applied the road to peace would be far more accessible.  However, by trying to integrate unquestioning bromides with the sound principles of our founding we are undercutting our security and stooping to the arguments of the fanatics that shout they know the truth and unless they enforce it they are not doing “God’s Will”. Those in America who claim our religious heritage has led us to freedom overlook the role of reason that pointed the way for tolerance of beliefs and a ban on their enforcement by law.  This wisdom is recognized and practiced in our country but it is hidden from debate by cowing to the customs and traditions of countries unwilling to recognize why it trumps zealotry.

Yes we are in this war for the long haul but we are extending the road by shrinking from facing the issue that has created and sustains the war.  Our media shuns the issue as too controversial and unacceptable to too many viewers/readers/listeners.  Our clergy echo the claims of the terrorists that god is on our side.  The government naively thinks its weapons and non-confrontational “diplomacy” will win the day if only enough citizens and soldiers believe in the course they are struggling to define.  It is no wonder the war’s end is not in sight.  The enemy has not been defined.  Terrorists exist in our own country preying on scientist’s laboratories, abortion clinics and timber operations. These terrorists we treat as criminals and prosecute them accordingly.  Foreign terrorists are treated differently not because they are more destructive or vicious but because they have attacked us as a nation for who we are.  Why they defined us as the enemy can only be traced to the beliefs they have accepted.  If we do not reject their beliefs as central to the conflict we are simply repeating history.  It is a deadly game of “you’re wrong ,”  “no you’re wrong” .

So how do we escape this self imposed dilemma?  We first of all have to define what it is that we stand for and why.  We have to be stalwart in our defense of reason and reject out of hand any role of faith from either side.  We have to point the value of living on earth and rejecting totally any illusions of an afterlife.  If we do not value this life there is no other to defend.  If we wish to hold on to our misconceptions and beliefs that we cannot prove then we like the terrorists will only seek mutual destruction.  If we do not want to subjugate death to life and treat life as our highest value then we have opened the door to sacrifice for ourselves and our loved ones.  We do not have to continue to flounder in a quagmire of ill defined missions.  We are perfectly capable of recognizing that what is wrong is a reliance on a method of obtaining knowledge that is divorced from reality and is not appropriate for mankind.  With this as our banner we can determine whether or not a given action is in our interest.  We can reexamine and correct what needs to be clarified and executed.  We can communicate from a common base.  This is not possible with the illusion that faith will triumph.  After two thousand years of faith is it not time to give reason a chance?  Reason works in your daily life.  You don’t rely on faith to fix your flat tire or cook your breakfast.  Why relegate it to the security of your life and your nation?   This dissertation  will in all probability fall on deaf ears.  There is too much change advocated for exposure and dissemination to be considered to be in the interest of those who could present it as viable and worthy of consideration.  But repeating the same old nonsense seems to be worthy of promotion.  Were this the case when this country was founded it would never have been founded..  And without the recognition of this flaw in our identification of the issue, the war on terror will continue into the future that will claim the lives of those that have been deluded.